Underwriting stupidity

I recall fires in California burning down homes for the past 50 years. Declaring such places federal disaster areas simply means that the whole country pays. Perhaps if such easy money were not available, people would build more carefully. New Jersey does not have similar fire problems. Instead, we (being no more intelligent than Californians) insist on building and rebuilding on flood plains that (guess what?) continue to flood. And public money continues to finance private rebuilding. We are underwriting stupidity from sea to shining sea. We can no longer afford to do that, in California, in New Jersey, in America.